Samhainn night
by kouw
Summary: Once upon a Samhainn night in a small Yorkshire town, a wife waits for her husband


**Samhuinn night**

As the nights grow colder and the choice in fruit and vegetables diminishes, Elsie Carson finds herself thinking about her childhood in Argyle. Once upon a time she had been a bonnie lass and she had many young friends. By the time October rolled along, they used to make their plans for the harvest festival and worked hard to see them through.

She would go guising with them - her face a little blackened with soot from the grate and her mother having the worst time cleaning it off, but never once complained about it - and dookin' for apples at one of the nearby farms. Her trick had always been the reciting of the famous Burns poem _Halloween_.

She would carve out neeps with Becky and mother would provide them with candles to place inside them. The eerie glow of the light through the eyes and mouth of the turnip would scare Becky in a most delightful way. Being slightly spooked on Samhuinn night is part of the magic. After all: it is the night the spirits visit.

The bonfires cleansed all of them as they walked between the two on Joe's father's farm, lads and lasses alike and they would throw nuts in the flames, hoping for a smooth disintegrating of the thing. When she and Joe threw in theirs, the nuts hissed and spat at them and Joe laughed.

Elsie had not.

She left for England and Joe stayed behind. He married Ivy and Elsie doesn't doubt the nuts they threw in the fire burnt to nothing without either hissing or spitting.

In Yorkshire the festival of Samhuinn isn't celebrated and though Doctor Clarkson is a fellow Scot, she never saw a hollowed out turnip on his doorstep..

This year the memories returned unexpectedly. Perhaps it was the fire behind Yewtree Farm that reduced the fallen leaves to ashes, or maybe it was the tub of apples in Downton's kitchen, waiting to be peeled. Maybe it was having a home of her own for the first time in almost fifty years.

She finds herself in her own kitchen, slicing off the bottoms and tops of the turnips and giving them eyes, noses and mouths. It's the late afternoon of the 31st of October and she is just in time. She hums under her breath, a song she hasn't sung in decades. There's a spice cake in the oven and tonight she will light a bright fire in the grate in the parlour.

There's a bag of hazelnuts in the pantry.

Elsie steps back from the counter and looks at her handywork. Seven turnips she has carved: one for each member of their families: her parents and his, Becky and themselves. She will light them when twilight makes way for night and she will recite her much-loved poem.

Though perhaps not all of it. It is a very long poem and she isn't entirely sure she still remembers all the words. She doesn't think Charlie will mind.

* * *

It must be around six when he opens the door and takes off his hat and coat in the hallway. The scent of spice tickles his nose and he can hear Elsie singing in the kitchen. The cottage is warm and he exchanges his shoes for his slippers before finding his wife.

He glances into the parlour and finds there is a fire burning merrily in the fireplace and he can count seven little turnips on the mantelpiece, all of them lit from within. He shakes his head. He can't figure why she would have done that, but he knows he can expect they're having turnips for their tea.

He daren't tell her he doesn't really like them.

He knows better than to aggravate her by criticize her cooking. He has learned from past mistakes and to be truthful: Elsie's cooking has come on leaps and bounds. It had not been entirely fair of him to expect her to be a great cook from the get-go. Like him, she had concentrated on her job, not on the skills needed to be a proper wife.

He had not prioritized the skills needed to be a proper husband, either. But together they have been learning and to his great surprise he finds that the cottage has become his home. Especially when he sees her pottering about the kitchen, wearing an apron to keep her dress clean and her hair simply done up.

She is very pretty, he thinks. He coughs and she sharply turns around.

"Charlie! I didn't hear you come in!" Her hand has flown up to her chest and she is shaking her head at him.

"I didn't mean to startle you," he says and she smiles at him.

"Well, it rather be you than a spirit," she says and steps closer to kiss him.

"What do you mean? What spirit?" He leans in and kisses her and she smiles again.

"I will tell you all about it, but first I need to pull the cake from the oven."

Far be it from him to keep her: he does like his sweets. He watches her as she opens the oven door and carefully picks up the cake tin, protecting her hands with a folded tea towel.

'This is it,' he thinks. 'This is happiness. This is the autumn of my life and it is warm and happy and fragrant with our joy and bickering and loving.'

Elsie puts the tin on the cooling rack and the spices he smelled when he came in, fill the kitchen threefold.

"What are we celebrating?" he asks and watches Elsie pull the knot from her apron and laying it over the back of a chair before she takes his hand and pulls him with her to the parlour.

* * *

She curls up next to him on the settee and watches the light dancing from the turnips against the wall. The shapes from the triangles and squares she has cut from the neeps are comforting now instead of scary, like they were way-back-when.

"When I was a girl," she starts and she can feel Charlie leaning in closer, "My family celebrated the festivals that measured the year. Today would be Samhuinn."

"What's that word?" he asks, genuinely interested.

"Samhuinn," she pronounces it carefully. "It is a harvest festival. A celebration to mark the end of summer. It's when the world will go to sleep and we would make great bonfires and have all sorts of rituals you, my Englishman, will probably find quite disturbing."

"That sounds ominous," he says and Elsie puts her head on his shoulder.

"Not really. Just a lot of beliefs from a more innocent time."

"I can almost envision you as a little girl, looking at the bonfire," he softly speaks and she feels his breath in her hair. His arm steals around her shoulders and this, she knows, is what home is.

"They build two fires," she explains, "And you run between them. So your soul would be cleansed."

"I cannot imagine your soul needed much cleansing."

"Maybe it didn't, but it's just what you did. Like throwing nuts into the fire to see if your marriage would be calm or stormy."

"What did the fire say?" he asks.

"Joe's nut was spat straight from the fire while mine hissed something awful," she answers.

"Would ours fare better?"

Elsie knows he is just theorising. Thinking out loud.

"I have some in the kitchen?" she offers. "Would you like to give it a go?"

Charles grins. "Why not?"

* * *

He stares into the fire and thinks about the things he doesn't know about his wife and the things he knows without her telling him. Her power and strength. Her beauty and knowledge. He thinks about the severe dresses she wears to work, the ensemble she wore on their wedding day. The nightgowns of thin cotton that leave almost nothing to his imagination.

He coughs when she returns triumphantly with a paper bag.

"Here," she says and gives him a hazelnut. He holds it between finger and thumb and awaits his instructions.

She stands in front of the fire and the flames give her skin and hair a golden glow. She is so beautiful, his Highland witch.

"Come on, then," she says impatiently.

He stands next to her and throws his hazelnut in the fire when she does.

* * *

The nuts burn sweetly. The scent perfumes the front room. The Highland witch and the Englishman kiss in front of the fire, celebrating the coming of the night.

Outside the spirits dance in the rain. 


End file.
